Graduating pupils of LEA Primary school in Utako, Abuja, were on Friday celebrated by a club, Read2Succeed, R2S, which had since last September been training them on how to read effectively preparatory to their entry into secondary school. The need and benefits of reading was in the course of the ceremony, reiterated to the over seventy pupils that participated.
In an apparent demonstration of how much they had been trained to read to succeed, six of the passing-out pupils won a spelling bee competition they had with four adult guests at the event. The pupils won by 19 points to their challengers’ 3 points in a competition that saw them spelling obscure words directed at them and giving its meaning.
The organizers of R2S, who were led by the coordinator – Ms Simi Fajemirokun of ESFAJ & Partners Consulting Firm, presented plaques to four outstanding members of the club under the categories of: Neatest; Most Participatory; Most Improved; Best Overall. The honours went to Amira Aliyu, Ugwuanyi Amarachi, Daniel Maduka and Christopher Omenihu respectively. While various nominees for the four categories were given presents, every other member of the club got a certificate.
Speaking at the event, Headmistress of the school, Hajiya Aisha Hawa, called for “three gbosa to be given to Aunty Simi and her friends for the good works they have been doing in this school; for the knowledge they have been imparting on these children”.
While expressing the gratitude of the school management for the commitment, dexterity and passion shown by the organizers of the programme, she said: “I pray that the almighty God strengthen you and continue to help you in whatever you are doing”.
“As for the children, please as you are leaving us, I believe whatever they might have taught you from the beginning to the end is not going to be a waste right? And we want you to keep remembering Aunty Simi’s team in your prayers for them to continue the good works they are doing in this school. I pray that the spirit of God be with you all”.
Noting that a lot has been said already during the official graduation ceremony of the school which held the previous day, Hajia Hawa said, “I pray that whatever was said yesterday would not be left behind as they are leaving”.
Continuing she said, “One of the advices I would have for the graduating students is that they shouldn’t join bad gangs as they are leaving because a lot of things are happening in town now. Whereby, we see children of their age joining different types of bad groups; smoking, cultism. So, all these things shouldn’t be their portion. For the six years they stayed with us, we’ve never encountered any negative problem from them. They have been of good behavior and I pray it will continue that way”.
The Headmistress went on to boast that “I am confident that the level of education so far impacted on the children can make the children gain admission into any secondary school. Since, they started with us; we have not encountered any problem with them”.
Ms Fajemirokun on her part, who explained to newsmen why her organization settled for a primary rather than a secondary school, noted that: “Secondary school is actually easy but you are going to have that problem of poor output because the foundation is wrong. We are focusing on primary six students because it is actually that intervention where you can lay a foundation and it can better improve in secondary school.
“Now, if we scale up the programme, other volunteers can actually come into secondary schools and be able to give mentorship where possible but our strategic approach to using primary schools is just to strengthen that foundation. When we started, some students in primary six could not read and these students are going to be in secondary school. So even if you say secondary school is easier, at least in primary school, you can work through it,” she explained.
On how and why they settled for a school in Utako area of Abuja, the coordinator said: “The reason we picked LEA school, Utako is because our office is based in Utako. So, it makes sense from a logistical perspective to adopt a school in your community. With this one, we are encouraging other people to do same. Say, if you have your office in Gwarimpa, just take one hour to come and read to pupils in any public school there and go back.
“We want to set up relationship with different public schools and then other volunteers in that community can volunteer to go in and read to students. We have a curriculum for first term, second term and third term. The first term is based on history, second term is focused on poetry and third term is for different use of language”.
She went on to state that R2S, which has existed for two years, “is a programme aimed at improving literacy in public schools. Everyone always complain about how bad education is; that children are not speaking good English but broken English. So, there is a huge literacy problem, so instead of complaining about it, we decided okay to start a programme where people who are working can spend one hour per week, typically on Thursdays – your launch break – just come and read to students.
“Most of the time, teachers are overburdened. So a guest coming in to make reading fun would make all the difference in weather a child will learn or not learn. Our hope is for everyone to pick this model and hopefully get to improve the educational system in Nigeria,” she stated.
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